Bass Reeves Gets His Due

 July 12, 2022

    Got a big trip planned in the next ten days.

Bass Reeves History Conference, July 21-23

   I am really looking forward to this one. We're going to have some major history fun.

Daily Scratchboard Whip Out:

"The Black Lawman On The White Horse"

With over 3,000 arrests and close to two dozen gunfights, Bass Reeves is some crazy amazing lawman.

   It gives me great pleasure to say we told you so. Back in January of 2021 we did a cover story on Bass Reeves finally getting his due and today it has been announced there are not one, but two movies in the works on the long overlooked lawman. Details tomorrow.

"Bass Reeves makes Wyatt Earp look like a part-time mall cop."

—BBB

The Castle Ranch Has Been Identified

 July 12, 2022

   A mystery has been solved! Edmundo Segundo sent me this photo and asked me if I knew where it was taken and the year? I didn't know, but I had a hunch I have a friend or two who might know, and sure enough, I posted it here and on Facebook and this just came in from a history friend of mine in Nogales.

   "This picture is of El Alamo Ranch taken about 1930 when it was operating as a guest ranch and a working cattle ranch. Rancho El Álamo is located about 30 miles NW of Magdalena, Sonora. The Adobe castle on the top of the hill was modeled after Harlech Castle, Wales. The bricks were made on the ranch and fired in a mesquite fueled kiln there. I last saw that castle about 5 years ago from a distance of a mile or two away on the Tubatama-Magdalena highway. I imagine it’s still standing. I have to give a shout out to my friend Jean England Neubauer who is the granddaughter of the guy who built the castle. She owns and runs the Santa Cruz Chili and Spice Co. in Tumacacori, Arizona across the road from the Tumacacori National Historic Monument. Jean has written and published a family history along with recipes for chilies. It is well illustrated and has several photos of El Alamo, including the one you showed. I’ll 'borrow' a couple of photos from her book but they have to be credited to her. She and her husband Bill are personal friends and I’ve been a guest in their home at the historic Rock Corral Ranch in Tumacacori. Much more to come."

—Historian Greg Scott

"People knock social media but to me, this kind of connection is a dream come true."

—BBB

The Longest Graveyard Came to Pass

 July 11, 2022

   Scrambling to finish the September issue. Goes to press tomorrow. Arguing over pesky details, like, "he won the Medal of Honor," vs. "he received the Medal of Honor." A good catch by our contributing editor, Lynda Sanchez: "They refer to medal of honor folks as recipients, not winners. It is a common thing that people say all the time but it irritates our veterans." Okay, got it. Changed. Thanks Lynda!

Parting The Clouds

   Need to work smart. Starting to feel the heat. Here is my art hitlist for the homestretch on the book.

Worklist for Real Women of The Wild West

• Better Sacagawea

• Longest Graveyard

• Pike's Peak Mamacita

• Ma'am Jones of The Pecos

• The Great Western

• Sharlot & Grover

   And, here's my first pass at one of them.

Daily Scraatchboard Whip Out:

"The Longest Graveyard"

Death On The Trail

The Oregon Trail has been called the world's longest graveyard. The pioneer immigrants lost their lives to influenza, cholera, severe dysentery, or accidents. They were crushed by wagon wheels, stepped on by oxen or killed when a simple cut turned into a gangrenous infection.

"Passed 7 new-made graves, One had 4 bodies in it—cholera. . . .Another man died. Passed 6 new graves. We have passed 21 new-made graves. . .Made 18 miles. Passed 13 graves today."

—Cecelia Adams, in her 1852 diary

Life May Be Too Short to Be Busy But I'm Too Busy to Die

 July 10, 2022

   When you've spent your whole life looking at old photos you begin to get a sense of the time period and sometimes even the location just at a glance. Case in point, my old studio mate, Edmundo Segundo (Ed Mell), sent me this old photograph and wondered if I could tell him where and when it was taken. 

   The short answer is, I have never seen this image. The location looks muy exotic with the castle walls, but my gut tells me it's from the 1920s—1950s, based on the cowboy and his gear, and the ocotillo fence in the right foreground puts it in the American Southwest but the castle turrets, and the hint of a Mexican flag up there (?), makes me believe it's in Mexico, perhaps across the Rio Grande from southern Texas, in Chihuahua? Or, it could be a movie set? What do you think?

   Have you ever witnessed some poor sap getting a "dressing down"? It ain't pretty. Especially when power and peonage collide.

Daily Scratchboard Whip Outs:

"The Dressing Down"

The Curse of Busyness

   One of my cartoonist bretheren, Tim Kreider, wrote a very popular essay on the joys of "idling, daydreaming, hanging out and goofing off." Why? Because, as he puts it, "Life is too short to be busy."

   Ha. Love the sentiment, but I can't die now, I've got deadlines, dude!

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep."

—Scott Adams, cartoonist "The Dilbert Principle"

Stealing From The Best And Looking Ahead to The Phippen Art Show

 July 9, 2022

    We are running an eight-page photo essay on the Real Women of the Wild West in the September issue. Here is part of the intro, written by my co-writer, Jana Bommersbach:

   "For your viewing pleasure, we present a photo essay of the strong, bold, sassy, bawdy, stubborn, bodacious and superior women of the Old West."

   The whole piece is superior. Great images, fun bios, zany quotes. My favorite is: "Leave me alone and let me go to hell by my own route."

   Now that is a great quote by this courageous cross dresser.

The One & Only

Martha Jane Canary aka Calamity Jane

    And, here is a couple of the color pieces framed by Guzal that will be in the Phippen Art Museum Show in November.

Framed Daily Whip Outs:

" Color Wheel Deal"

   Also had time today to attack another scratchboard woman.

Daily Scratchboard Whip Out:

"Looking Ahead"

   Went over to the neighbors to watch the new Doctor Strange. It was too strange for me.

"In any art you're allowed to steal anything if you can make it better."

—Ernest Hemingway.

Dubious Sources & Superior Framing

 July 8, 2022

   One of the things I pride myself on is printing the truth, warts and all. That has been our motto at True West magazine and I especially adhere to it in my illustrated books. So, it was a tad irritating to read this criticism of my work in "Imagining Wild Bill: James Butler Hickok In War, Media and Memory." The authors, Ed Cavdill and Paul Ashdown make this claim, "He [BBB] drew a few times on dubious sources as Buel's biography." Well, not as a source, but only to illustrate just how goofy the early writing on Hickok could be.

   File this one under Ask And Ye Shall Receive:

   Yes, Dan The Man's Crazy Horse Four-Ever T-shirt design is now availabe in the True West Mercantile Store.

   Guzal brought by the first batch of framed artwork for the Phippen Museum art show. Here's a sneak peek. 

Daily Whip Out: "Guzal Rocks!"

   Uno approves. Not sure I have enough time to paint and scratch all the women I want for the book, and the show, but I am going to give it my best shot.

"Lord, grant that I may always desire more than I can accomplish."

—Michelangelo

Back In The Saddle Again

 July 7, 2022

   Great trip to the cold northwest. Left on the Fourth of July and flew to Seattle and then drove out to Issaquah for a couple days with the kids and the grandkids. It was so chilly and soggy, at one point Kathy and I had to sit outside in the sun to warm up! What a treat that was.

Cowboy PJs On Parade

   Dan The Man Harshberger has been on a roll. Check out his T-Shirt idea based on my four Crazy Horse images.

   And here is Dan's new design for the name change on the cover of our forthcoming book.

Sah-weet!

   And Dan also designed these new Old Vaquero Coasters.

"Badges?"

   And here is the back side of these fantastic drink coasters:

Old Vaquero Drink Coasters

   Yes, these are promotional swag bag items to promote the book which will be printed by the Boys down at Cattletrack Arts Compound.

  To say the least, Dan The Man is on a roll.

"I believe in luck: how else can you explain the success of those you dislike?"

—Jean Cocteau

Renaming A horse In The Middle of A Stream

 July 3, 2022

   Oh, boy, here we go again.

   Meet some of the crazy ladies who made this country what it is today.

Another collage executed by Jordan Benjamin

Renaming A Horse In The Middle of A Stream

   I was noodling a possible name for my art show this coming November and came up with "Trailblazers & Hellraisers: The Real Women of The Wild West" and when I ran it by my curator, Kristi Jacobs, she said, "Why isn't that the name of your book?" A damn good question. So I ran it by my co-author, our publisher, our art director, our production manager, our editor and various members of my family who are visiting from Japan and they all said the same thing: "Agreed. It's a much better title." So, we'll reattack the cover after the Fourth.

   I am still wrestling with the Sharlot Hall pulling a gun on Grover Cleveland opus which features a flash flood in a deep wash, mules, not horses, but the metaphor—don't changes horses in the middle of a stream—is still apropos of everything.

Monthly Whip Out:

"When Sharlot Hall Pulled A Gun

On Grover Cleveland"

   An alternative title might be, "When Red Means Stop And A Gun Means Go."

   Meanwhile, in a world far, far away, a Kingman kid caught a wave.

Everybody's Gone Surfin', Even BBB

   Not quite: the board's rented, the surf lessons didn't quite pay off, but you get the picture. Mission Beach, San Diego, 1986.

"You can't judge a book by its previous cover."

—Old Vaquero Saying

Arizona Sunset Print & Real Women Collage #1

 July 2, 2022

   Big pool party today for the visiting kids and all their friends. Still finishing and rounding up scratchboards for the big women's book we are completing this summer.

Daily Scratchboard Whip Out:

"Imagine That"

   I have a summer interm named Jordan Benjamin working with me and I have been showing her my collage ideas involving my scratchboards. She has done several variations from my sketches and look what she cooked up:

Real Women Collage #1

   Meanwhile, down at Cattletrack Arts Compound:

Brent Bond's First Pass at a BBB print

Brent Bond BBB Print Final

"Collage is the Twentieth Century's greatest invention."

—Robert Motherwell

The Danger of Crossing Swollen Washes

 July 1, 2022

   I had actually planned on finishing the Sharlot Hall running wash painting in a day, if not half-a-day, but here we are a week later. My only excuse is I'm dealing with a lot of moving parts.

   But once again, was it wise to force a crossing in a storm? I thought Greg Scott's comments yesterday put a fine point on Sharlot's questionable bravery.

Wash Savvy

   Crossing a rain swollen wash is a foolhearty thing to do as evidenced by this old photograph taken in the same neighborhood Sharlot and Grover were traversing.

Photo by Adam Clark Vroman

"On the way to Hopi towns, 'something that happened on the trip,'" 1901

   What's so amazing about this photograph to me is that they are not even in a canyon. And the wash seems rather shallow to the casual observer, but Man, talk about up to the hubs!

   Anyway, back to the task at hand. Closer, I'm shooting for tomorrow. Meanwhile, there's this:

Daily Whip Out Revisited:

"Temptress Smokescreen"

"If studying history always makes you proud and happy, you probably aren't studying history."

—Old Vaquero Saying

Atomic Billy And Sharlot Hall Semi-Final And A Solid Defense of Grover Cleveland

 June 30, 2022

Mike Molsbergen just bought my original painting of "Atomic Billy," which was created to illustrate the span of life of Francisco Gomez who rode with Billy the Kid and on Susan McSween and lived until 1946, perhaps witnessing the glow of the first atomic bomb some 70 miles west of his home in Lincoln, New Mexico.

Daily Whip Out: "Atomic Billy"

  Three roughs and two Whip Outs later, we get to here.

Daily Unfinished Whip Out:

"When Sharlot Hall Pulled A Gun

On Grover Cleveland"

Note to self: make those boys mules, ground that rear wheel, keep the glow over Sharlot's head, get the rigging right, bring out the road rising from the near shore. Show the faint tracks disappearing into the raging water. Sign it. Frame it.

A Solid Defense of Grover Cleveland

"Navajo Grover Cleveland’s refusal to enter a flooded wash in 1912 simply anticipated the 1995 Arizona stupid driver law (ARS 28-910) that extends liability for the stupid driver who enters a flooded roadway and becomes stranded. Look at it this way; Grover was certainly younger than Sharlot (why else would a Dine or otherwise mother name her son after the 22nd [and 24th] President born before 1885?) who was a Territorial Officer. Like any other driver who has grown up in Arizona, (except for those who gave the state law its name) Grover knew that if he just waited, perhaps an hour or less, that the water would recede and it would be safer to cross. Sharlot wasn’t having it and forced him to carry on. She’s lucky he didn’t just leave her there and walk home. No doubt she was capable of driving a wagon, but one stuck up to the hubs and sinking deeper would have presented a dilemma even the talented Ms. Hall would find challenging. Luckily they both survived."

—Greg Scott

"Finish the work, otherwise an unfinished work will finish you."

—Amit Kalantri

Sharlot And Grover Cleveland Assume The Position

 June 29, 2022

    If I get out on the road before six it's still in the mid-seventies. And I get to see cool stuff like this

Early sunlight on the Seventh Sister

Sharlot Gets Macho

   Still trying to nail the scene of Sharlot Hall pulling a gun on Grover Cleveland. Here is an excellent photo of Sharlot taken at the Grand Canyon.

Sharlot Hall at The Grand Canyon

(courtesy Sharlot Hall Museum)

Assume The Position

   So, I am definitely going to give her this hat for the ambitious gun pulling episode I am painting for the book. This morning I coerced two local models to join me at a certain driveway on Cahava Ranch Road where there is a rickety old buckboard parked at the front gate of an unoccupied abode. I wanted to get this done before the heat gets nuclear, so we arrived at about seven when it was already 92 degrees out and the male model bridled at putting on a bomber jacket in the heat, but he ultimately complied. The female model has worked for me for decades and she knew exactly what I wanted. We shot this as quickly as we could.

Thomas Charles and Kathy Sue

Assume The Position

   I was particularly interested in the position of the hands and feet on the narrow buckboard seat. This really helps me with the composition. An alternate title to this mother-son photo could easily be "Go Clean Your Room!"

Was Grover Cleveland Actually Afraid?

     In my reading of the facts in the gun pulling episode I have a hunch Grover Cleveland was being more practical, than being afraid. After all, Sharlot's macho version was a story she told to a female friend in Phoenix and that friend told her version to a researcher and then that story was interpreted by the author of the book on Sharlot. While it is true Sharlot was distraught about her mother being at death's door and in the hospital, and, it makes perfect sense she showed sand about getting to Winslow ASAP I'm still not convinced he was afraid of her.  I kind of lean towards the fact that he wanted to help her, period.

   I'll post the finish of this scene tomorrow.

Looking Down The Long Nose of Contemporary Snobbishness

  Got this comment on a recent blog post about the authenticity of swearing in shows like "1883": "Westerns rely on a lot of stereotype tropes, which can make them feel old-fashioned and painfully unrealistic."

   Okay, and if those stereotype tropes are replaced by new stereotype tropes, does that make the end result any less painfully unrealistic? Or, just agreeable to a certain set of stereotypical tropes?

"Go clean your room!"

—Every mother who has ever lived

A visiting painter goes large

June 27, 2022

   Got a visiting painter in the Triple B Studio this week. Her name is Harper and she is fearless and she loves to paint big as all life.

Grandpa Ha Ha predicts she will go far.

  If there's one thing I do really well, it's having serious doubts about the artwork I have completed. Nobody I know goes back to try and salvage a ruined painting more than I do. But the key to the exercise is—did I actually save it? Case in point:

Daily Whip Out: "Cowgirl Rocket Ride"

   This failed little painting has been sitting on the side of my art desk for months and I have opined every time I looked at it. On a recent walk up Old Stage Road I got the inspiration: I must walk past a dozen horses going up to Morningstar and back and yesterday I noticed a common phenom in the early morning light.

   Meanwhile, still trying to capture the nightime story effects of running washes and a buckboard on the brink.

Daily Whip Out:

"When Sharlot Hall Pulled A Gun

On Grover Cleveland, 2"

   Got the water, now to nail that buckboard.

"Mooing is easy when you don't know how."

—Old Vaquero Saying

The Never Mind The Molochs Tour

 June 26, 2022

   My punk son, Thomas Charles, is visiting from Japan and he had to share with me his latest find, The Sleaford Mods and their zany tune, "Tied Up In Notts." We laughed and laughed. If I was ten minutes younger I would have been a punk. I actually enjoy the dumbed-down drumming and the one-note sarcasm, but I especially enjoy the attitude.

  I have a penchant for naming road trips. Back in 2015 I took the kids on a car trip to visit the country where I was born and that resulted in the Bell Family Farm Tour, which we shortened to BFF Tour, and then, in typical road trip goofiness, we morphed that into the BLT Tour which has a tiny bit of relevance since the bacon-lettuce and tomato sandwich is a huge road trip Iowa staple. Especially as you near Algona, Iowa. Anyway, my son and I have named their current visit, The Never Mind The Molachs Tour.

   Speaking of road trips, and my recent trek to Deadwood in that mammoth Yukon rental Gooser, I read a review of the new Lexus LX 600 F Sport this morning and I totally agree: ". . .anybody who plops down six figures for one of these woozy mammoths has got what's coming to them. May the hotshot real estate agents who buy them never find a parking place. May barn owls disgrace Courtney's open moonroof while she's taking riding lessons." This is penned by the hilarious journalist, Dan Neil, eviscerating all these new, ridiculous XL beasts in the Wall Street Journal. He goes on, "a fantastical beast of human folly: a chauffeur-driven luxury 4X4, with performance dampers and 22-inch wheels, brandishing a huge and crazy making seven bar chrome grille. That is so not me." And, one more zinger, regarding the purpose of this grandiosity: "to appall the middle class."

   Amen, Dan. Amen.

   A big storm blew in yesterday afternoon with ominous clouds and blowing wind and not one drop of rain.

Storm Over The Crow's Nest

   We call this kind of storm the "Guacamuggies," which was a term we came up with on KSLX on the Jones, Boze & Jeanne Show, because we disliked the term "monsoon" so much. Couldn't do that bit today! Today, weathermen call it a "haboob" which I dislike even more, but there you go. If you live long enough everything you love will be taken away. Even some of the things you dislike.

Nothing Is New Developments

  We tend to think of our ancestors as being rather prim and proper because most of the photographs they left us give off the air of properness and restraint, but every once in a while a crack appears and we get to see that they were just as goofy as we are. This is someone's great-great grandmother. Sobering, yes?

Victorian Funny Face

   One more take on Sharlot's buckboard driver:

Daily Whip Out: "Grover Cleveland No. 2"

   And, one more look at the kid who plays the Kid in the new series, "Billy the Kid."

Tom Blyth is a very convincing Kid

   And, I finally got a chance to dig into James B. Mills' new book and it is very good. Written from the hispano point of view, it is long overdue and a great read. I highly recommend it.

El Bandido Simpatico

   And how did we get to the Moloch part of the tour? Well, it's a theory base on a certain poem that's too complicated to go into, but here you go.

"Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb!"

—Allen Ginsberg

When Sharlot Hall Pulled A Gun On Grover Cleveland

 June 25, 2022

   Here is a little known story that needs to be illustrated for our Real Women of The Wild West book.

"While Sharlot [Hall] was still in the Marsh Pass area an Indian runner came with a telegram from the Tuba [City] agency for her.  Her beloved mother had been brought, critically ill, from Orchard Ranch to the Mercy Hospital on August 14.  Wasting not a moment, Sharlot made preparations to intercept the train at the nearest station, Winslow.  Commandeering the buckboard and their Navajo guide, Grover Cleveland, she started out late that afternoon to make an all-night dash over the all but invisible wagon track between Marsh Pass and Winslow.  A violent storm broke during the night, turning the normally dry washes which they must ford into raging torrents of muddy water.  Terrified, the Indian driver refused to go on.  Sharlot pulled a gun on him, forcing him to take the buckboard through the swirling waters and on down the nearly obliterated trail until he reached Winslow and the railroad station.  As Sharlot told the story later to her good friend, Alice Hewins of Phoenix, 'she did not know which he was most afraid of, the road or Sharlot.' "

Daily Whip Out: "Grover Cleveland"

Here's What Google Gave Me

   Marsh Pass, also known as La Puerta Limita, "The Border Gate", is a gap in Navajo County, Arizona. It lies at an elevation of 6,102 feet / 1860 meters along Laguña Creek. The name of Marsh Pass is thought to come from its location along a chain of swamps and lakes in the pass, that have since been drained by a deep arroyo. The original Spanish name of the pass, La Puerta Limita, indicated the border between the Mexican provinces of Santa Fe de Nuevo México and Alta California to the west. Marsh Pass was a location along the Armijo Route of the Old Spanish Trail between present day Kayenta and the Crossing of the Fathers on the Colorado River. There the route turned northwest toward the crossing on the Colorado River.^[3]

   In order to illustrate this accurately, I need images of the rough passageways from Marsh Pass down to Winslow. On modern maps, the probable route appears to be Highway 4 down to Second Mesa and then Highway 87 down to Winslow where Sharlot said she caught the Santa Fe (going west to Ashfork and then the spur line down to Prescott).

   If I had to guess, Black Mesa traverses the highway from Tuba City to Keyenta, and it appears to have some rough canyons to the south of Marsh Pass and it was probably in that area that the swollen wash and the pistol pulling took place. Here's a modern map of the area. We're looking at northeast Arizona on the Navajo Res. That's Flagstaff, the big yellow mess at bottom left, and that's I-40 along the bottom.

It's a long ride, that's for sure.

   Or, maybe the scene is so dark, it won't really matter?

Daily Whip Out Study:

"Sharlot Pulls A Gun On Grover Cleveland"

   Special thanks to the Reference Desk Coordinator Tom Schmidt at Sharlot Hall Museum who found the above adventure for me.

"Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, the melancholia, the panic fear which is inherent in the human condition."

—Graham Greene

Oldtime Cowboy Covers & The Triple B Poser

 June 24, 2022

Kathy and Tommy are cleaning out old boxes in the house and as I walked by Tommy gave me a box full of these.

Old Time Cowboy Covers From

Shoot-em Ups to Light Bondage

Tye Leung saved many young Chinese girls from a life of bondage and prostitution in early San Francisco. She is one of the heroes of our forthcoming book on "The Real Women of The Wild West."

Daily Whip Out: "Out of The Darkness"

Roadside Miracles & The Meaning of Life

   A small boy with big ears piled out of a 1957 Ford Fairlane and ran into a roadside museum on old Route 66. What he saw in there would ultimately change his life.

The 66 Kid Gets Religion

Storm Over The Triple B Bunkhouse

Uno Guards The Entrance

   Such a good dog. Not for actually guarding the empty shell of a building, but because I posed him there, told him "to stay" while I backed up for the shot, and he held the position the entire time. What a poser! What a good dog!

"I was in darkness, but I took three steps and found myself in paradise. The first step was a good thought, the second, a good word: and the third, a good deed."

—Friedrich Nietzsche

My Favorite Harlot Pulled A Pistol On A Ferryman

 June 23, 2022

   Took another run at one of the heroes of our Real Women of the Wild West book.

Daily Whip Out: "Sacagawea & Child"

     Another one of the feisty women who will be featured prominently in our Real Women of the Wild West book will be this iconic woman:

Daily Scratchboard Whip Out: 

"Sharlot Hall"

  Sharlot loved a good fight, and broke gender barriers. She was a free soul and her writing expresses this sense of freedom.

“But I do enjoy everything – just the sunshine on the sand is beautiful enough to keep one giving thanks for eyes to see with. And all day long I’m glad, so glad, so glad that God let me be an out-door woman and love the big things. I couldn’t be a tame house cat woman and spend big sunny, glorious days giving card parties and planning dresses — though I love pretty clothes and good dinners and friends – and would love a home where only the true, kind, worth-while things had place.
“I’m not unwomanly – don’t you dare to think so – but God meant woman to joy in his great, clean, beautiful world – and I thank Him that He lets me see some of it not through a window pane.

• Sharlot was rumored to have had several affairs and catty women around Prescott called her "Harlot Shall."

• She pulled a gun on a ferryman.

• She was not a feminist she was a humanist.

• She was a Republican.

• Many letters were destroyed after her death along with many by her close friend, the painter Kate Cori, who is buried in the Hall family plot but there's no mention of Kate in the official biography of Sharlot by Margaret F. Maxwell.

   One more shot of my friend and Kid colleague:

Fred Nolan at the Cowboy Symposium,

in Ruidoso, October 14, 2012

"Your body is not a temple, it's an amusement part. Enjoy the ride."

—Anthony Bourdain